"הוא לא בבית עכשיו כי הוא מסתפר."

Translation: He's not at home now because he's getting a haircut.

[saracen93]

Shouldn't "He's not home" be accepted as well?

[airelibre]

Yes

[ajchin]

So ספר as a root means either 'writing' or 'barber' (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%A1%D7%A4%D7%A8) though the pronunciations are different. Can be confusing

[ShiloGeva]

First of all, as a Hebrew teacher I don't like it when teachers (usually not Israelis) get the students used to translate one root to one word in English. It's wrong. Root is a family of (close) meanings.
In this case there are three subcategories of the root:

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1. סוֹפֵר, סֵפֶר, סיפּוּר; סיפֵּר, סוּפַר...

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Which talk about stories and books etc...

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1. מִסְפָּר, סְפִירָה; סָפַר...

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Which talk about counting

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1. סַפָּר, מִסְפָּרַיִים; סִיפֵּר, הִסְתַפֵּר...

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Which talk about haircut.

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The changes in the sound of the פ is due to phonetical or morphological changes. (No place to explain...). Not necessarily due to meaning....
Hope I helped

[rBhr5]

I hope 'he's getting his hair cut' is accepted as well.

[xerostomus]

There is no "his" in the sentence.

[rBhr5]

'Getting one's hair cut' is an equivalent in English to 'getting a haircut'. That's why 'he's getting his hair cut' should be an equivalent to 'he's getting a haircut', even though there is no 'he' in the sentence on a literal level. It's an idiomatic expression.

[JarlNydahl]

It is a reflexive verb, so his is implied. He didn't have a haircut for someone else.

[TeribleT]

מִסְתַּפֵּר mistaper

Present tense / participle, masculine, singular:

I / you m. sg. / he / it get(s) his hair cut

Pealim.com

[xerostomus]

"Go home" versus "I am AT home". It should be this way, isn't it. There is no logic in the English translations. Sometime it is proper English sometimes slang...

[--Fcms]

This is confusing it didn’t give me the exact words

[Celioluzverde]

Bad pronunciation...